Dirty Harry

This is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world

The city of San Francisco is being terrorized by a psychotic killer known only as Scorpio (Andrew Robinson). Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) and his new partner Chico (Reni Santoni) are assigned to hunt him down. Scorpio promises to kill a black person and a priest if the city doesn't give him $100,000. To Harry 's disgust the mayor capitulates, which leads to two other murders.

Then Scorpio kidnaps a 14-year-old girl and buries her alive, demanding a $200,000 ransom for her return. Harry responds with increasingly brutal methods to achieve his aim. The killer is caught, but released because of Harry's illegal arrest procedure. But when Scorpio hijacks a school bus, it is Callahan again, who is asked to be bag man and carry the ransom. Harry refuses to be the mayor's delivery boy; instead he wants Scorpio on his own.

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Trivia

Police officers are often confronted with situations in which they feel forced to take illegal actions to achieve a greater good. It's called The Dirty Harry Problem. “When and to what extent does the morally good end justify an ethically, politically, or legally dangerous means for its achievement?”--Source: An Introduction to Policing, Page 172

Clint Eastwood performed all his own stunts, including the stunt where he jumps onto the roof of the hijacked school bus from a bridge. His face is clearly visible throughout the shot.

The original title was Dead Right

Initially, Warner Bros. wanted either Sydney Pollack or Irvin Kershner to direct. Kershner was eventually hired when Frank Sinatra was still set to star, but when Sinatra dropped out, so too did Kershner.

All the outdoor scenes were actually filmed in San Francisco except for the bank robbery which Dirty Harry foils, when he first utters his immortal phrase, "'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" This scene was shot on a set.

The Hutchinson Co. quarry where the final shootout takes place was located just south of the Larkspur exit off highway 101. It was demolished in the mid 1980s.

Albert Popwell appeared in every Dirty Harry film except The Dead Pool (1988) playing a different character in each movie.

The bridge Callahan jumps off landing on the roof of a schoolbus (in Larkspur, California) was torn down in August 2003 after being damaged by a truck two months earlier.

After Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel came on board the project, they hired writer Dean Riesner to work on the script. In his first rewrite, the bank robbery scene ends with Harry not pointing the gun at the robber, but placing it against his own temple. He pulls the trigger, laughs and then walks away. Eastwood and Siegel both felt this was too extreme, even for Harry Callahan.

Serial killer Scorpio was loosely based on the Zodiac killer, who used to taunt police and media with notes about his crimes, in one of which he threatened to hijack a school bus full of children. The role of Harry Callahan was loosely based on real life detective David Toschi who was the chief investigator in the Zodiac case.

When Universal let go of the script, Warner Bros. purchased it with a view to cast Frank Sinatra. Sinatra was interested, however he had broken his wrist during the filming of The Manchurian Candidate (1962) eight years previously, and during contract negotiations, he found the large handgun too unwieldy. Additionally, his father had recently passed away, and Sinatra decided he wanted to do some lighter material. After Sinatra dropped out, Warner Bros. considered Marlon Brando for the role, but never officially approached him. Next, they offered it to Steve McQueen and then Paul Newman, both of whom turned it down. Newman however suggested Clint Eastwood as a possible star.

Andrew Robinson who played Scorpio, claims to have ad-libbed the line "Hubba, hubba, hubba, pig bastard" while taunting Harry on the phone.

After the film was released, actor Andrew Robinson received several death threats, and had to get an unlisted phone number.

The opening sniper scenes were shot from atop San Francisco's Bank of America Building located at 555 California Street. The sniper's target is a girl swimming in the pool on the roof of the Holiday Inn in Chinatown, a few blocks north at 750 Kearny Street.

When Don Siegel was hired as director, he was considering Audie Murphy for the role of Scorpio. Siegel thought it would be a nice irony to have a genuine war hero and heroic screen icon known for playing clean-cut characters playing a psychopathic killer. Siegel offered Murphy the role, but Murphy died in a plane crash on 28 May 1971 prior to making his final decision.

Director Don Siegel noted that he cast Andrew Robinson (Scorpio) because he wanted someone with the face of a choir boy.